It is widely known that natural breast feeding is the best way to nurture an infant. The quality of mother's milk is superior to prepared formulas and the act of providing an infant with the mother's warm breast and comfort is an important aspect of proper child development and bonding between mother and infant. However, artificial feeding systems may be desirable or necessary in some circumstances. These include medical situations such as premature births, mothers who have had mastectomies or who are unable to lactate sufficiently, infants who require dietary supplements, and health problems such as cleft pallet or breast abscesses. Social situations requiring artificial feeding include employed women who are unable to feed their infant at work, women who use a breast pump and require a container for feeding, the need to feed adopted infants, and other medical or social situations that may recommend the use of an artificial container.
Healthcare professionals agree that an infant's sensory experience is particularly important in the formidable stages of development, and especially in the feeding process. While artificial feeding containers can never fully imitate a mother, the breast-like infant feeding container disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/814,565 provides a far more natural sensory experience for infants when artificial feeding means are needed.
The many baby bottles now widely in use may be cited for abundant shortcomings, the greatest being the unnaturalness of nursing from a rigid, angular, elongate container, often in contact with an infant's cheeks, chin, nose and hands. This results in a predominance of unnatural sensory experience that is inappropriate, particularly for newborn infants. Although artificial nipples are typically soft, they do not provide a sensory experience similar to the comforting feeling of breast feeding wherein an infant is often in fill contact with the mother's soft, warm breast. A second disadvantage is that elongate bottles have a small base and a high center of gravity, making them vulnerable to overturning. Elongate bottles are hard to clean, as the bottom may be reached only with a bottle brush. Furthermore, rigid bottles can cause infants to ingest unnecessary amounts of air. While the latter issues are addressed by recent innovations in infant feeding systems, no existing container, other than the one referenced in patent application Ser. No. 07/814,565, offers the combination of form, feel and function comparable to natural breast feeding.
Manoyian, U.S. Pat. No. 3,112,837, discloses a disposable bulbous infant feeding container which has rigid elements in contact the infant's mouth. The unit was designed to be sold with dry formula, the user adding water and discarding the container after one use. The container cannot be filled with breast milk, washed or refilled. Furthermore, it has a high center of gravity and a narrow base. These deficiencies appear to have precluded commercial success.
Manufacture of a breast imitating container is dependent on the use of non-toxic, hypoallergenic materials which are safe for use in the subject application, easily molded, cost effective, and have good tactile surface quality. Preferred embodiments are disclosed which improve the performance of the breast like container previously in patent application Ser. No. 07/814,565, and facilitate cost effective manufacture.
Removable liners have been in common use in infant feeding containers for many years. However, the use of a removable liner in a breast like container presents unique problems. Of particular importance is the tactile quality of the upper part of the container which comes in frequent contact with the infant's face. Also, the filling port on a collapsible liner must be small enough to allow the liner to collapse, permitting the full contents to be withdrawn. For these reasons, the liner of the present invention is designed to eliminate the usual rigid components used to seal the top of conventional elongate liners, as these components are typically in contact with an infant's mouth, chin, nose and cheeks.
The ingestion of air by an infant using an artificial container is believed to be a major contributor to colic. While a resilient container helps to mitigate this problem, embodiments of the breast like container have been designed to include an integral anti-vacuum valvular feature to further reduce the incidence of air ingestion by the infant user.
A four piece container design is also disclosed herein to facilitate more cost effective molding and to improve sealability of the bottom closure lid on certain embodiments.
Resilient foams can provide good tactile surface quality, but limitations exist with these materials relative to their ability to provide a sealable structure to withstand the abuse imposed by infant usage, such as dropping a full container from a crib or high chair. Bonding rigid elements to a foam container body to overcome this problem is one option. Alternately, non-foam thermoplastics and thermoset rubber can be molded with sealable threads when molded with an adequate cross section. These same materials have good resilience and tactile quality when molded in thin cross section so that a single container can be both relatively rigid at the base and pliant in the upper nipple area depending upon container wall thickness.
It has become evident that the breast-like container will often be used in conjunction with a breast pump to provide an infant with expressed mother's milk. To obviate the need for an adapter, an intermediate container, or a modified container attachment on standard breast pumps, it is desirable to be able to directly couple the breast like container of the present invention with a conventional breast pump.
Constraints in molding processes, combined with the current availability of tear resistant, resilient foams which are approved for food contact, led to design approaches that offer excellent surface tactile quality as well as possessing insulating value to retain warmth of the contents over an extended feeding period.
The above identified pending application specifies resilient container walls to simulate the tactile quality of a natural breast. Many types of foam, and particularly those more recently developed, conform to the original criteria to a high degree. Fine grained cellular thermoplastic elastomers, metallocene polyolefins, elastomeric metallocene rubber as well as other types of foamed thermoplastics and rubber can provide a safe, hypoallergenic and non-toxic container having excellent tactile quality, good thermal insulation properties, and a satisfactory degree of tear resistance. Furthermore, a relatively rigid inner shell may be used beneath the foam to mitigate potential problems with leakage through the nipple when the container is squeezed. Specification of the use of resilient foams in the container facilitates constructing a breast-like infant feeding container having friendly tactile quality, of considerable importance in the subject invention.